


samson

by sadsparties



Series: hair rituals [1]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Accidental Stimulation, Comfort, Gen, Haircuts, Jared Harris's Sexy Forelock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21975130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadsparties/pseuds/sadsparties
Summary: Francis can hardly keep Jopson's services to himself, seeing as how James had readily relinquished Bridgens’s. This leaves Francis to attend to his own ablutions, and while he can reacquaint himself with the razor, cutting his own hair requires a dexterity he does not possess.“Have you ever cut someone’s hair before?”James smiles. “Who do you think cuts mine?”
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Series: hair rituals [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2118939
Comments: 27
Kudos: 140
Collections: janky franky's frosty fun time 2k19





	samson

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Frosty Fun Time prompt: let it go

_It starts with a cry against the heavens._

“Hell’s bells!” Francis mutters under his breath. James lets out a soft huff as he tilts the pitcher over Francis’s head. The water is melted ice, but ice nonetheless, and Francis feels the cold seep into his roots and a bit of his collar. He is bent over the basin, feet apart and steady on Terror’s tilting floor. Beside him, James wrings the last of the soap from Francis’s hair.

It is a strange tableau. With a month left until they abandon the ships, all hands have been called to the various tasks of packing and sorting, even Jopson. Francis can hardly keep his services to himself, seeing as how James had readily relinquished Bridgens’s.

This leaves Francis to attend to his own ablutions, and while he can reacquaint himself with the razor, cutting his own hair requires a dexterity he does not possess. The ends have grown long enough to chafe against his collar. When James catches him thoughtfully running his hand over the back of his head, he offers to play the barber.

“Have you ever cut someone’s hair before?”

James smiles. “Who do you think cuts mine?”

And so, Francis sits on a chair in the middle of the great cabin, the seat bolstered by two copies of Sir George Back’s memoirs. He watches as James selects a pair of brass shears from the table. James inspects it under the bright afternoon light, and thus satisfied, wraps a sheet around Francis’s neck.

Francis forces himself to still as James stands behind him. James’s fingers brush his wet hair in different directions, as if gauging the density of the forest he must contend with. The sections part willingly under his ministrations and he lets out a pleased hum. He rubs a few strands between his fingers before saying: “Ready?”

The first snip, when it comes, seems to reverberate in Francis’s skull. James has opted to begin with the tendrils of hair curling at the back of his neck, and he senses every strand tremble as it is severed from his head. He feels the coolness of the shears sliding across his nape, the tautness as James pinches bits here and there, and the sweet, sweet release of a cut, like paper being torn.

Were it currently possible, Francis would clap the back of his own head and call himself a fool. He has had a lifetime of haircuts; but something in the air, the dust dancing in the light, the angle of the floor, amplifies the simple operation that James is performing behind him. The sensation is altogether too much and Francis closes his eyes. He tries to focus on other impressions—the texture of Sir George's books beneath him, his forelock falling in front of his eyes—so determined to block everything else out that he does not realize that James is speaking.

“When I first cut my hair, I had just joined the navy,” James says. He begins a steady, systematic pace, pinch - snip - pinch - snip. It almost lulls Francis to sleep. “The enterprise was hardly easy, and most frustrating, but what I lack in sense I make up for in perseverance. My nan taught me the essentials before I went off to join my first ship. Until then, she’d always been the one to cut my hair, and when she did, she would tell me the story of Samson and Delilah—do you know it?” Francis opens his eyes and tries to recall the tale: a man and his wife, a betrayal, a death. “She cautioned me to never let another person cut my hair, excepting that I trusted them with my secrets. It’s an old wives’ tale, I know, but I’ve followed it just the same.”

What does it mean then that I’m letting you cut mine, Francis wants to tease, but he thinks that if he does, the spell cast in their little oasis might break. He remains silent, because this is the most eloquent that James has been since the carnival, the first time that his tale has no hint of glory, nor vanity. Francis wants to see the expression in James’s face, wants to press this moment in a pamphlet, like a flower, and keep it in the pocket of his waistcoat.

James discards the shears and picks up a razor for Francis’s sideburns. He whets the blade on a soaped towel and Francis tilts his head to accommodate him. Francis thinks should feel uncomfortable, to offer up his beating artery to a man with a razor, a man he had once accosted in drunken anger. But he does not. James’s fingers fold his ears back, and Francis perceives the cool edge of the razor graze his cheek. His shoulders tense, and it makes James pause.

“All well, Francis?” James’s body looming over him, his warm breath against Francis’s neck, his knuckles pressing right under Francis’s jaw: it is too much. “Yes!” he barks out. Francis takes stock of his senses, adjusts in his seat. “Yes,” he says once again. When he chances a glance at James, his grip on the razor has gone slack. “Your nan,” Francis tries again—don’t stop; keep talking to me— “was she satisfied with your handiwork when you returned?”

In reply, James only smiles. He bends forward, closer. “Had she wanted to, she could not. When I returned from my first assignment, I discovered that they had sent her back to... to her family. My brother Will greeted me at the front of our house and gave me the news. He knew it would upset me and bade me to clear my face.”

Francis has no trouble conjuring this image of a younger James mastering his own expression, the lines of worry smoothing out, the crease of anger contorting into a clever smile. He imagines it a useful skill for an officer trying to advance his career. Once, Francis would have resented him for it. But not now, not after everything, not when James is wearing this mask at this very moment. Francis would have him speak of merrier things.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” he attempts. This at least earns him a chuckle.

“The closest to a brother I can have,” James says. “Will has always looked out for me, and he is a great carer of people, despite his constitution. A few years ago he’d gotten married while I was away, and though I was surprised by the development, I knew that he would make a good husband and father.” James pauses. He has returned to attend to Francis’s nape, and for some time has been running the pad of his thumb to the newly minted hairline he has created. Checking for stray hairs, Francis thinks.

“And then Ned had wedded shortly after, and I was suddenly made to face a future where I was confined to a life of a bachelor amongst happily married friends.” James curls his thumb just so, and his nail bites against Francis’s skin. Francis clears his throat.

“We may be alike in that sentiment,” he says. “Sir James, the younger Ross I mean, he got engaged just before we went on our voyage south. I would hear nothing but wedding plans during the entire expedition, and when we dropped anchor, I frequently wished we were on our way again on our separate ships, if only to spare my ears from his bride’s virtues.”

Francis does not know why he chooses the time to say this. Ross’s Ann indeed has many virtues, and is fond of him as he is of her, but his feelings had not always been so rosy. He was initially driven, by a twisted sense of possessiveness, to envy and resentment—a confession that he has never made to Ross. He did not want to seem ungrateful or entitled, and he would never want to spoil Ross’s happiness. But here in this miserable great cabin with its treacherous floor, with unburnished words spilling from James Fitzjames’s mouth, Francis feels like he could speak an inkling of his truth, and be understood for it.

“They say that sailors are meant for lonely lives,” he says, “but I would not trade for a lasting marriage in front of a roaring fire the few friendships that I have made in frozen decks through the years.” Francis feels a squall in his chest, the doomed drop of a ship riding a wave as it falls from a crest. “To me, they are the most enduring, and the most precious—” he ought to stop now, Francis thinks, but he owes James this much—“present company included.”

His declaration is met with silence, and for a moment Francis fears that he has made an error. He has just claimed James as his friend, whether Francis deserves to be his or not.

Then, the thumb pressing at his neck moves to his shoulder and James gives him a firm squeeze. Francis hears his gratitude though he does not speak it. He can feel it in the grip of James’s hand, the warmth coursing through his shirt and into his very veins. Thank you, it says. I see you, he wants to say back. He turns in his seat, half-facing James now, and smiles.

_It ends, or starts, with a fall._

Francis feels it more than he sees it. In his forelock, a droplet of water hangs perilously at the tip. It has built up slowly and carefully, trickling down and gaining size from when he tilted his head. At Francis’s movement, gravity finally lays its claim and the droplet relinquishes its hold. It slices through the air, falls.

And catches itself on James’s fingertip.

James looks at his hand, palm up and outstretched before he could discern what he had meant to do. His face is inscrutable once more, but there is no mask now, only consideration. Slowly, James raises his hand, closes his eyes, and presses his finger to his lips.

On deck, the bell for the dog watch rings.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Absolutely zero research was made regarding Victorian haircuts. We're all just here for the UST, are we not?


End file.
